MAKUKH, VASYL OMELIANOVYCH (b. November 14, 1927, in the village of Kariv, Rava-Ruska district, now Sokal district, Lviv region – d. November 6, 1968, in Kyiv).
A UPA soldier and political prisoner. He self-immolated to protest Ukraine's colonial status and the occupation of Czechoslovakia.
Born into a peasant family with strong national consciousness. Influenced by his father and neighbors Mykola and Petro Duzyi (the latter a well-known publicist and editor of the OUN journal “Idea i chyn”), he joined the ranks of the UPA in 1944, serving in military intelligence. In February 1946, he was wounded in the leg during a battle and captured by the NKVD. He was sentenced to 10 years of imprisonment and 5 years of exile. He served his sentence in the camps of Mordovia.
In exile in Siberia, he met the artist Lidiya Ivanivna Zapara, who had been interned from Germany and, at the age of 17, was imprisoned for 10 years and 5 years of exile for participating in agitprop brigade concerts with her stepmother during the German occupation. Once, when Lidiya fell ill with sepsis, Vasyl carried her to a doctor. Lidiya was released two years earlier than Makukh and wrote him letters. He was a man of good upbringing, cultured, and well-read.
After his release, Makukh was forbidden from living in the western regions of Ukraine, so he went to Lidiya in Dnipropetrovsk. He finished building her grandmother's house on Pozhezhna Street, in the Amur-Pisky district, but did not marry for a long time. He would say: “Sooner or later, I will give my life for the freedom of Ukraine, so why start a family?” But he did marry. In 1960, their daughter Olya was born, and in 1964, their son Volodymyr.
Makukh worked in a hazardous fire-resistant materials workshop at the “Promtsynk” factory, and his blood pressure rose. He found a job as a mechanic for complex mechanisms and devices in the mechanical workshop. He enrolled in the 9th grade of an evening school and completed his secondary education. He entered the pedagogical faculty of the university but was quickly expelled for concealing his criminal record from the admissions committee. He studied on his own, hoping to be reinstated in the evening or correspondence department, but this was also denied.
The Makukhs sent their children to a Ukrainian-language kindergarten and school. The children complained that their peers mocked them for speaking Ukrainian, calling them “baklany,” and that the teachers did not defend them. Makukh was outraged that in the Cossack lands, on the banks of the Dnipro, the Ukrainian language was not heard.
Friends visited Makukh, and he traveled to Galicia to meet with former comrades.
In the January 1968 issue of the journal “Vitchyzna,” O. Honchar's novel “The Cathedral” was published, which deeply moved Makukh. He was angered by the scathing criticism of the novel in the press, and was even more affected by the occupation of Czechoslovakia by Warsaw Pact troops on August 21. At that time, Makukh told his wife he was ready to sacrifice himself for a free Ukraine and the future of their children.
In October 1968, Makukh took a vacation and went to visit his sister in the Lviv region. Before leaving, he told his wife and children: “If something happens to me, know that I love you all very much.” As Makukh was preparing to leave his relatives, his niece Yaroslava Osmylovska noticed him packing a three-liter jar. He explained: “It’s just some juice a neighbor gave me as a gift.” He did not go home but traveled to Kyiv.
There are unverified reports that Makukh was supposed to meet someone in Kyiv and that a protest against the occupation of Czechoslovakia was being planned for the eve of the anniversary of the October Revolution, but someone betrayed the organizers, and they were arrested.
In the middle of the day on November 5, 1968, on Khreshchatyk Street, near building No. 27, not far from the Bessarabsky Market, Makukh doused himself with gasoline and set himself on fire. He ran towards what is now Maidan Nezalezhnosti (Independence Square), shouting: “Down with the colonizers! Long live a free Ukraine!” People scattered in horror, while police officers, who were numerous on the pre-holiday Khreshchatyk, tried to extinguish the flames with their greatcoats.
Makukh was taken unconscious to a hospital, where he died on November 6 from burns incompatible with life (70% of his skin was burned). An hour before his death, he regained consciousness. “You have orphaned your children,” the doctors told him. Makukh replied: “They will yet be proud of their father. Today, we are all orphans. Today, Ukraine is an orphan...”
When his widow and his son’s godfather, Ivan Tsybukh, came to collect the body, they were placed under close surveillance to prevent them from communicating with anyone. The funeral at the Klochko settlement cemetery in Dnipropetrovsk took place under the strict supervision of the KGB. People who came to the funeral were photographed, and their names were carefully recorded.
For three months, the widow was summoned for interrogations by the KGB to find out with whom Makukh had associated. She only explained that he was a wonderful person and a good family man. She was fired from her job as a cook and could not find work anywhere for several years. To feed her children, she had to sell things from the house. Makukh's sister, Paraska, who lived in the Lviv region, was summoned to the district KGB office on November 7. She returned with damaged lungs, was coughing up blood, and died two years later.
There were no reports of Makukh’s self-immolation in the Ukrainian media. However, foreign news agencies, based on an anonymous samvydav report, announced: “A citizen of Ukraine, Vasyl Makukh, in protest against the Soviet communist regime, the enslavement of the Ukrainian people, and the USSR's aggression against Czechoslovakia, committed an act of self-immolation in Kyiv. The entire world community bows its head before this unprecedented and courageous act.”
Seven Muscovites protested the occupation of Czechoslovakia on Red Square on August 25, 1968. The Ukrainian Makukh burst into flames on November 5, 1968. The Czech student Jan Palach self-immolated on Wenceslas Square in Prague on January 16, 1969.
In May 2006, the Dnipropetrovsk regional organization of the All-Ukrainian Society of Political Prisoners and Repressed Persons honored Makukh and is petitioning for him to be posthumously awarded the title of Hero of Ukraine.
Bibliography:
“Pamiati heroia (pro V. Makukha)” (“In Memory of a Hero [about V. Makukh]”) // U borotbi za voliu Ukrainy (In the Struggle for Ukraine's Freedom). Book 2. – Lviv, 2003. – pp. 75-78.
Serhiy Dovhan. “Vohon protestu. Samospalennia Vasylia Makukha u 1968 rotsi na Khreshchatyku osvitylo radianski zlochyny” (“The Fire of Protest. Vasyl Makukh's Self-Immolation on Khreshchatyk in 1968 Illuminated Soviet Crimes”). – Ukraina moloda, 2004. – June 5.
Hennadiy Sakharov. “Zabutyi heroi Ukrainy” (“The Forgotten Hero of Ukraine”). – Ukrainska hazeta, No. 21 (69), 2006. – June 1.
Mykola Nechyporenko. “Smoloskypom osiaiav Khreshchatu dorohu” (“He Lit Up the Khreshchatyk Road with a Torch”). – Silski visti, No. 64 (17895), 2006. – June 6.
Nadiya Harmash. “Vin spodivavsia, shcho Ukraina prokynetsia...” (“He Hoped That Ukraine Would Awaken...”). – Slovo prosvity, No. 38 (363), 2006. – September 21. – pp. 7, 10.
“Makukh Vasyl Omelianovych.” Material from Wikipedia – the free encyclopedia: http://uk.wikipedia.org/wiki/
International Biographical Dictionary of Dissidents from Central and Eastern Europe and the Former USSR. Vol. 1. Ukraine. Part 2. – Kharkiv: Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group; “Prava Liudyny,” 2006. – pp. 419-421. https://museum.khpg.org/1184404827
Vasyl Omelianovych Makukh // Bilia vytokiv Nezalezhnosti (At the Origins of Independence). – Comp. and ed. M. Sydorzhevskyi. – Kyiv, 2011. – pp. 100–105.
Rukh oporu v Ukraini: 1960–1990. Entsyklopedychnyi dovidnyk (The Resistance Movement in Ukraine: 1960–1990. An Encyclopedic Guide) / Foreword by Osyp Zinkevych, Oles Obertas. – Kyiv: Smoloskyp, 2010. – pp. 398–399; 2nd ed.: 2012, – pp. 447–448.
Petro Franko. Vasyl Makukh. 1927–1968. – Lviv: Triada plius [Booklet. No year of publ.]
FILM by Oleksandr Riabokrys about Vasyl Makukh “Bez prava na slavu” (“Without the Right to Glory”): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-EOGJFAaPAM
Vasyl Ovsiienko, Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group. June 9, 2006. Last read August 11, 2016.
